This morning I woke up to this story on my feed about Saturday Night Live covering the topic of feminism. The sketch, which featured Ariana Grande and most if not all the women on SNL, was about how the group wanted to write a feminist song but how it got a bit problematic on the way to include everything you WOULD want to include in a feminist song, and then does that mean it isn’t a feminist song anymore? Or maybe we shouldn’t write a feminist song? Or maybe because we’re trying, it IS a feminist song? By the end your head is spinning, especially if you’re not too familiar with the current air of feminist culture.
Personally, I found it amusing, although to be honest, the song itself as a song sucked (maybe that was part of the joke, though?) And the music video as a music video? Also sucked (I mean, the lens flares, the “old woman’s hands”, the running around on the beach with streamers?), which definitely had to have been part of the joke (not just a joke on feminism, but a joke on overplayed music video tropes).
The question remains, though: Can there be such a thing as a feminist song? Of course! Does it have to be overly complicated like they make it seem in the sketch? Where they’re obviously concerned with making sure to cover all feminist topics within a three-minute video? Hell no.
There are plenty of dope feminist songs out there. And sure, they don’t all cover domestic violence AND reproductive rights AND the wage pay gap AND the perspectives of all WOC AND trans rights AND rape culture AND body positivity and and and… but just like there are no perfect feminists, and no perfect feminism, there is no perfect feminist song but there ARE feminist songs. Some might come from folks we eventually found to be problematic, or from artists who are problematic in the eyes of some and not others, or who have written other songs that definitely weren’t feminist, but that’s okay.
I know the whole joke of the SNL sketch was about how much feminists police themselves and each other, but I would argue that maybe it’s not as much policing as holding one another accountable and frequently having higher standards than other folks simply because we know we CAN and SHOULD all be doing better. Sure, that may be tiring at times, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep trying. And yeah, you will occasionally find someone who’s being an asshole claiming it’s in the name of feminism, but that’s because assholes don’t exist in a vaccum. There are jerks that claim to be many labels, but it doesn’t mean everyone that calls themselves a feminist or an activist or a dentist or a lawyer or a Sagittarius or tennis player or a brunette is one.
PS. If you want a few examples of my favorite feminist tunes, here’s a few:
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